Not As Cold
by lostinfantasy1493
Summary: "Tell me all the things you could never tell anyone else. Because I am not real for you, and you are not real for me." Edward Elric x Reader. Naturally AU.


Song: Listen To Your Heart—DHT (Slow Version)

Sometimes you feel like your life is falling apart. When you say this out loud to yourself, your denial immediately kicks in. You tell yourself that you're just being a normal girl in her 20s. Just being a normal girl, fresh in the real world, recently let go of denial and imaginary things and secret pleasures like love and dreams and fantasies. You now go to university, you have a job, you're trying to get a car, you're beginning to feel responsible for your family. You are becoming an adult. Albeit an adult who loves new ideas the way kids do. An adult who became way too engrossed in drowning her quarter life crisis watching FullMetal Alchemist.

After you let go of the boy you were trying to hold on to, your perception of Edward Elric differs. You see a sincere, straightforward, loyal, passionate person. You remember only slightly that he is not real. Mostly you admire the depth of his eyes, the glint of his hair, his many expressions, his _liveliness._

But at night, everything changes. The night is mystical, powerful. Even you can't control it. So when you snuggle underneath your sheets and the only light is the slivers of moon filtering from thick snowy clouds, you see him watching you. He is there, in front of the window, his eyes shining against the moonlight. He does not speak—it would ruin the magic. You would remember that he has a love, that he died, that he is not real, that you are.

He senses that you are cold, so he uncomfortably wraps you in his arms. He's young; he's not really experienced with loving openly. He's made it impossible for you to see his face, but you can feel him squirming. His arms are thin and hard. They bore into your skin. You don't mind. You trace the intricate work of his automail arm, surprised that it's not as cold as you imagined it.

You think of Winry. You ask him to tell you about her. You say, "tell me all the things you could never tell anyone else. Because I am not real for you, and you are not real for me."

For a moment, he looks at you. You drape your arm across his waist and snuggle closer, reassuring. Now, nothing is real except him.

Moonlight softly touches the room around you. He talks.

He tells you about his dreams, his fears. He tells you how every single time he makes a decision, he remembers that he is a mere child. How every time someone has died, he has died with them. How food is sometimes what keeps him sane, how he would gladly sacrifice his nightmare-laden sleep to Alphonse. How, when his brother's voice echoes in his armor, he recalls leaping across the river in the valley with him and trying to sound bats out of the caves by yelling. He tells you his profanity is his refuge, the clothes on his back and his grant money his only possessions. He tells you about Winry.

He recalls how, as a child, he would tease her for being a bookworm and nosing into her parents' PharmaGuide. How, secretly, he would hate how she was so close to her parents, especially her father—and then go home to bury himself in Hohenheim's alchemy texts. He tells you about the time he considered asking her to tattoo his crest on her lower back, because that is his secret fetish. After things started getting worse, he momentarily thought of asking her to tattoo a transmutation circle instead, in case she needed protection. But by then he had seen too many horrors.

"I wish I was her," you whisper. He cracks a smile and affectionately pulls you in the crook of his neck. His jaw is now chiseled, older, his pulse thrumming against your nose. You lose yourself in his warmth, clutching onto his old black jacket, dreaming of mother-of-pearl skies and serene villages. You wonder out loud how easy life would be if people could just talk like this, the way you are talking to him. His voice cracks when he softly laughs, his breath fluttering your hair.

You love him so much. You don't love him at all, and yet you love him more than anything. You wrap your arms around him and embrace him tightly, as if to shield him from his own hurt. He gasps softly, then exhales. His eyes are glistening.

You both breathe together in this bubble, both your terrors and his hovering mere feet from you, the bubble ready to burst at any second. But for now, it is enough. This is enough. His breaths resonate with yours, his warm pulse reassures your skin, and you are blanketed with threads of moonlight.

Soon both of you are peacefully asleep.

When you wake up, it will be time for work, and school, and unfathomed forms of worry. When he wakes up, it will be time for the World War, Alphonse Heidrich, and befuddling new laws of nature. Both of you will once again become part of lives whose philosophies you do not understand, people whose motives fail to resonate with you. The light at the ends of both your tunnels once seemed so precariously close. Now they're miles away again.

But for now, this is enough. In your sleep, you kiss him, and you are both reassured to find each other still there.


End file.
